Beth Blacksin from Channel 8 interrupted with a question about Lacey, and several other reporters jumped in. I ignored them and explained how Frenada had gone to Lacey and asked for a chance to make some of the Global Entertainment spin–off products.

“Money in movies isn’t just made on the screen. When your kid has to have that Captain Doberman T–shirt or those Space Beret action figures, the cash registers at Global are ringing. Mad Virgin shirts are very popular with young teens—they’re one of the first movie spin–off items to find a huge marketing success with teenage girls. Oversize denim jackets are another hot seller in Global’s Virginwear line.

“When Nicola Aguinaldo’s body was found, she was wearing one of the T–shirts that Lucian Frenada made as a demo for Teddy Trant at Global. You all remember the party at the Golden Glow back in June, when Frenada came and Lacey had him thrown out? He was demanding to know why Trant had stolen one of the shirts. Global didn’t want to work with him, but Frenada was highly suspicious that Trant might be going to copy some of his workmanship. Of course everyone thought Frenada was trying any tactic he could to get Lacey to influence Global into buying from him: why would a studio head, who could pick up a Mad Virgin T–shirt anytime he walked into his office, go to the trouble of stealing one from a small Humboldt Park entrepreneur?

“But I believe that is exactly what Trant did. He was at Frenada’s shop on the Tuesday night right before Nicola died. That’s a fact. This next is a guess, but I believe that in some crazy scheme, maybe caused by watching too many of his own movies, Trant stole one of Frenada’s shirts to put on Nicola, so that if any questions were asked about her death he could direct attention away from Coolis, from Global, and toward an innocent bystander.”

The room was in an uproar. I went back through the argument, ticking off the points on the slide that highlighted them.

When they seemed to be caught up with me, I went back to Baladine and his fury with me. How Global first tried to bribe me by hiring me to frame Frenada, and when I wouldn’t play, how Baladine began hounding me, culminating with planting cocaine in my office.

I played the video I’d made in my office. The group was firing so many questions now that I had to play it three times before I could go on.

“I don’t know if Baladine wanted me dead or discredited—” I began, when Murray piped up unexpectedly from the back of the room.